I Heart Science
by somekindafreaky
Summary: [set while Pyro is still with the XMen] Kitty takes it upon herself to tutor John in the glories of physics, chemistry and biology, with fluffy, though hopefully not OOC results. Kyro
1. Physics

This story, like _Fighting Fire_, is also set during John's time at the institute, before he left to join Magneto. I know this is a real cop-out on my part, but it is quite hard to bring Pyro and Kitty together in any remotely realistic situation when they're on completely different teams. And boarding schools provide so many opportunities..! But I do have a sort of vague idea for a post-X3 Kyro story in the works... it may or may not come to fruition.

In the meantime, enjoy this please:) Like I said in the summary, it should only be three chapters long, if I've planned this right.

Oh – and there are some swears in there. If John were real, let's face it, he would swear. They're mostly few and far between though.

…

**Magnetic**

It was eight o' clock, and a cold November evening. Outside the sky was already black, but for the ominous grey clouds that brought with them that heaviness in the air that preludes a storm.

John stood with his hands on the sill, staring out his bedroom window and contemplating the best way of escaping this boredom palace for somewhere with drink and, if he was feeling particularly insubordinate, girls.

A knock on his door distracted him. He turned his head a fraction, though kept his gaze on the night sky outside, and called, "What?"

There was no reply. He turned – and blanched with surprise – recovering adequately well and automatically placing a scowl on his face.

"I don't remember saying you could come in," he sneered at Kitty Pryde, who stood there in the middle of his room having evidently phased through the door.

"I figured you were expecting me," Kitty blinked, trying not to be fazed by his less than encouraging demeanour.

"What for?" he noticed she had a rather large and full-looking bag slung over one shoulder. However there were no shoes on her feet (only pink socks, of all stupid things) so she couldn't have been anticipating a trip anywhere.

She dropped the bag on his bed with presumption that annoyed him, even though he recognised it as of his own more prominent traits.

"Tutoring … in science … remember?"

Aside from disliking the sceptical and condescending expression she was wearing as if to call him stupid for forgetting, he was entirely dissatisfied with the situation as it stood; it all came flooding back. The stern lecture that he would have to pay more attention if he wished to pass his science modular exams at Christmas… that a tutor would really benefit him, and that there was someone in his class who had offered to help anyone who needed it…

So there she was, currently burrowing through her satchel and making a neat pile of books and bits and bobs on his bed. Infuriating.

"Which science do you want to start with?" she asked without looking up from her task of – what appeared to be – lining up the books in alphabetical order?

"The science of you getting out of here," he sighed in frustration, turning away back to his window. It was a pretty lame comeback, yes, but he couldn't be bothered to deal with her.

"I'm here to help _you!_" she cried, "Do you want good grades or not?"

"Honestly?" he turned and raised a cocky eyebrow at her.

"Try being honest with yourself," she frowned and crossed her arms in a school-m'am-ish way for all that she looked like a child in her cutesy pink cardigan. "This bad-boy thing doesn't fool anyone… not me, anyway. You do want good grades really, everybody does. Otherwise you'd be a fool."

It was a nice thought of hers that likely brought her much comfort during the long hours she spent poring over dreary textbooks; that everyone really yearned to achieve the way she did; that deep down everyone wanted to work hard! She clearly had not been brought up the way he had – he had figured that the first day he met her – to learn that in the real world, grades were of little import.

"You keep telling yourself that," he glared, getting tired of her. "But when it comes down to it, you don't want to be here, I don't want you to be here, so I think it'd be in everyone's best interests if you weren't here!"

She scoffed and turned back to the books, picking a particularly nasty-looking one up with a flourish. "That's too bad, cause I promised Dr Grey I would teach you, and I don't intend to let her down. So you'd better pull your grade up for both our sakes, and you won't unless you sit down and let me tutor you."

Ugh, it was bloody demeaning, the way she patronised him. And it was downright humiliating, accepting a short, annoying girl a few years his junior as an authority figure.

"We'll do some physics tonight!" she smiled at him. "That should ease us in nicely."

In John's experience, physics eased you into nothing other than an early grave. But she had already plumped down on his bed, opened the book on her lap and gestured to his desk chair opposite. Reluctantly he sat down, figuring he could get this over with by nine and maybe still salvage the rest of his evening.

"What physics module are you doing this semester anyway?" she asked, flicking through the noticeably well-thumbed pages of her book.

"How should I know?" he muttered.

Kitty looked up at him with a crease between her little eyebrows. "What? You don't even know what you're studying?"

He twitched his lip at her moodily in response, slouching slightly further down in his chair.

Kitty gritted her teeth. "Look John, if you cooperate this will all go by much faster!"

He knew this to be likely true, but he was loathe to go down without a fight. "It'll go even faster if you scuttle on out of here."

"Well I'm afraid that's just not going to happen," she glared, "Now tell me – was it the solar system?"

She was met with a petulant silence.

"Energy? Electromagnetism?"

"Yes, yeah, it was that one," he replied, striking on the first thing she said that sounded familiar, however unattractive the prospect of studying electromagnetism appeared.

"Ah," she slid the book off of her, shutting it again, and he caught the title: Advanced Astrophysics. Just the sound of it elicited a small grimace, and he decided that Kitty had just confirmed his opinion of her as an extraordinary nerd.

She picked up another less intimidating sort of book (at least this one had pictures) and flipped it open. "You know what magnetism is, yes?"

"I'm not a fucking idiot," he snapped, although it was quite possible his definition of magnetism differed from her own.

Clearly she wasn't taking anything for granted. "Magnetism is the process of things attracting or repulsing other things, with magnetic forces."

"I know," he hissed. She ignored him.

"It occurs due to the movement of electrical charge."

She had lost him there. But he wasn't about to say so.

"You'll probably need to know the Biot-Savart law for this – magnetism is found where charged particles are moving. Electromagnetism is where you have electrons in a current, or you can have them in a quantum-mechanical spin and orbital motion, and then you get permanent—"

She was obviously engrossed by this point, but must have looked up and caught the totally uncomprehending look on his face, because she stopped abruptly and went a bit red in the cheeks.

"Oh – I'm sorry! Was I going too fast?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, look – take a look at this." She stood up and brought the book over to him, placing it on the desk and pointing at a colourful diagram of… god knows what.

"What am I looking at?" he rolled his eyes in a fashion most likely unconvincing, even to the not-overly-perceptible Kitty. But he was determined to keep up the image of not caring.

"It's a magnet – a _bar_ magnet. And these lines – it's an experiment you can do, with iron filings. The filings are attracted and repelled, and they move to show you what the magnetic lines of force in a field look like."

He gave her another 'look'.

"Oh – sorry…"

…

"Oh my goodness!" Kitty leapt up off the bed and began scooping the various pencils and pages of doodles and calculations back into her bag.

"What are you doing?" John frowned, looking up from where he had been taking notes from her dictation – something he didn't remember having ever done with anyone else before, but he had always liked writing and found he was quick enough to be pretty good at this sort of thing.

"It's after eleven already!" she stared in disbelief at the clock on his bedside table flashing 11:48.

He blinked, genuinely surprised. It wasn't that time had flown, exactly. Now that he thought about it, it felt as though he had been listening to Kitty for a whole day. Simply, he hadn't been aware of time passing… at the time.

When he didn't move, Kitty cocked her head at him and reiterated, "We have classes tomorrow. And it's very late."

"Yeah, I guess," he answered, and was immediately surprised at himself. He glanced down at the page on his desk:

_Force electric charge of particle x velocity vector x magnetic field_

_Cross product force perpendicular to motion of particle and field_

What the hell was that? He blinked at it, briefly disoriented. It wasn't even Kitty's handwriting, neat and small and loopy, occasionally even with i's dotted with hearts. It was his own, and he realised that he hadn't worked as hard as he had in the past few hours for a very long time.

It had gotten off to a shaky start. Kitty had the tendency to get run away with when she became too absorbed in the physics that she apparently considered to be a most glorious thing. Several times he had had to stop her and ask her to back up and explain herself.

And of course, for a while he had been very averse to this that basically meant admitting he wasn't keeping up. But he had discovered, after the first few times he had essentially yelled at her to slow down, that she was too embarrassed at herself to be impatient with him.

And somehow, between her overexcitement and his unwillingness, they had settled on a dynamic that allowed him to take in knowledge and, remarkably, retain it. It didn't matter that Kitty's voice was too high-pitched and that she really was an insufferable bookworm.

At some point Kitty had produced from her bag a bottle of mountain dew – "School fuel!" she had cheerily called it as she took a swig. And it had annoyed him (was this sugar-sweet kid for real?) but he had downed half of it anyway. It had definitely propelled him on. Physics required a hell of a lot of energy, even if the topic was electromagnetism. And he had realised as he sat there, listening to her talk about monopoles and cosmology (though thankfully not in the same sentence) that he had ended up with drink and a girl after all. Just not in quite the sense anticipated.

He stood up and stretched in the most laid-back way possible, then continued to watch her pack away her things without offering to help. Even if he decided he was good at physics… it didn't mean he had to go all… like Kitty Pryde. Speaking of which –

"Bye John! You know, I was really pleasantly surprised tonight. I knew you could learn it if you applied yourself!"

She turned towards him, her hair not quite as combed down as it had been on her arrival, her books spilling out of her bag and her beaming smile criminally wide, bright and naïve.

"Good night! I'll see you tomorrow for Chemistry!" and with that she phased through the wall, leaving a strange silence in her wake.

John turned slowly to look out the window again. Most of the clouds had cleared, and a white waxing moon was visible over the skyline of the buildings in the distance, all twinkling with their tiny orange lights. He leant his forehead on the cool glass and thought that, even if he hadn't exactly been attracted by Kitty and her science tonight, he certainly hadn't been repelled either.

…

Not much (read: any) fluff yet, but two more chapters yet! Chemistry and Biology! I lurve me some science.


	2. Chemistry

**Bonding**

"Hey John!" Kitty walked straight through his wall and stopped in the middle of his room.

"Shit!" he jumped from where he had been reclined on his bed and frowned at her. "You didn't even knock!"

"Oh, sorry," she looked anything but, although her cheeks stained the slightest shade of pink as she began unloading books – fewer tonight, and all on chemistry. He climbed off his bed and took a seat backwards on his desk chair, legs either side of and arms folded across the back of it, the epitome of cool.

Kitty meanwhile, was the epitome of science dorkiness. Her hair was up in a bun that appeared to have been fastened with two _pencils_ in the place of chopsticks, and there was another pencil tucked behind her ear. However, where she had been wearing a pink cardigan and sweat pants the day before, tonight she had opted for a lilac turtleneck and jeans, both of which showed off her petite figure considerably better. He was not above checking her out with mild interest as he watched her from behind. Even if she was a dork, she was still a girl, and he was a boy.

"Right, are you ready for bonding?" she whirled around to face him, a tremendous smile on her face.

He raised an eyebrow and quirked a mocking half-smile.

"Er…" she faltered, and went rosy again, occupying herself with finding the right page in her book to hide her embarrassment.

"Okay, so, bonding in chemistry is where substances are held together through an attraction of their atoms…"

It was far easier to get into the swing of things this time. Kitty had prepared herself by asking John's teacher personally what modules he was meant to be studying, since he wasn't the most informed of students. More significantly, John had somewhat resigned himself to the idea of letting Kitty try to teach him. She seemed to be a little less patronising than most adult teachers, and though she wasn't exactly always patient, she was very kind-hearted and it was difficult to stay completely detached from her.

That morning they had passed in the corridor, and she had waved brightly to him. Bobby, who had been walking with John despite the fact that they were getting on each other's nerves more and more these days, had waved back, obviously thinking it directed at him. John had merely nodded at her slightly in acknowledgement, not sure how he felt about association with the most idealistic, least street-smart girl in the world.

Alone in his room, they didn't have to worry about that sort of thing. Kitty flung herself heart-first into the study of chemical bonding, whereas John listened and looked at her and found himself somehow remembering it all. Even when she mentioned quantum mechanics (as though it were a friend of hers), his head didn't totally spin out of control.

"That's what's so fascinating about it!" she bounced up and down on his bed happily, pointing to her book.

"Huh, what?"

"I mean, think about it," this time he went over to her to see what she was referencing, leaning over her shoulder and peering at another colourful diagram. "The elements can be so totally different," she smiled, "complete opposites. But if they have one thing in common – this tiny electron – they can bond over it, and they form something entirely new…"

She trailed off, but he lingered over her, his eyes drifting against his better judgement to the spot behind her ear, which seemed extremely close right now. He could smell the shampoo on her hair.

Kitty turned to peer at him confusedly, and his gaze snapped back to the book. "Yeah, interesting," he said flatly, moving away again.

"Yes," she looked back at her book, and he could tell by her expression that she had no idea what had just gone on. She was clueless when it came to things like boys, despite the fact that she was sixteen, maybe even seventeen. And it was endearing, though he had the feeling that it might put her in danger some day. Because boys were predators, and she was pretty appetising. Not to John, of course. The only importance she had to him was her potential to help him pass his exams – therefore, she was of very little importance.

Nonetheless, he didn't exactly dislike the time they spent together, which was strange since he wasn't particularly partial to either the company or the subject matter. Perhaps it was the peacefulness of it all. Sitting there, while she rattled on about ions and Schrödinger, and rain pattered lightly on the black window pane, he felt like he could almost be… normal.

That was a disturbing thought. He fingered his lighter in his pocket as though for comfort.

"John," she frowned at him a little, "you're not paying attention."

He refocused on her.

"Nah, not really."

Her brow furrowed charmingly. He decided he rather liked provoking her. "We're both giving up our time; we might as well make the most of it."

She was right of course, she almost always was.

"I think we need to take a break, that's all." He surprised himself as well as her with that. But then he glimpsed the clock – it was nearly ten, and they had been working hard so far.

"Well," she looked uneasy, "I don't like taking breaks usually…" he could believe that. "But… if you think it would help you work…"

"Yes," he kept the solemn look on his face, when really he felt a bit like laughing.

"What do you want to do then?" he thought she looked almost timid as she placed the book down. Maybe the prospect of being in his room with him, without the distraction of chemistry, might frighten her a little. Understandably.

"I dunno," he propped his feet on his desk and grinned over at her, enjoying the visible tension in her shoulders as she played with a strand of her hair that had come loose.

"I don't even know what you do for fun," she adjusted her position from a cross-legged one to hugging her knees and peeking at him from over the top of them. It struck him as being slightly self-protective.

"Likewise," he shrugged, although he could guess for her it had something to do with computers and/or books.

She smiled shyly at him. "I like dancing."

He was slightly surprised, though not much. She definitely had the body of a dancer, not an ounce of fat on her. And it was an appropriately sweet and girly hobby for her. "What, like ballet?"

"Well, yes," she admitted, "but also tap, and interpretive, and … hip-hop."

He inadvertently gave a snort of laughter.

"What?"

"_You_ like…"

"Yes!" she went a bit red again, though this time from indignation. "Everyone always acts like that when I tell them. I don't know why it's so hard to believe."

"Cause…" he sneered and looked her up and down.

"What?" she barked, striving to keep her fierce gaze on him when she clearly wanted to look elsewhere.

He cocked an amused smile. "Cause you're all… pink, and fluffy, and _cute_."

She did look away then, at the window and the rainstorm outside. There was a low rumble of thunder. He noticed that she was blushing, yet again. He didn't envy her that recurring habit.

Then he was feeling uncomfortable – had she taken that as a compliment? When it clearly was not meant that way. It was an insult if anything! Who would want to be pink, fluffy and cute?

In her defence, she was a mean fighter and had sassed people in the past, him included. But it didn't change the fact that essentially she was an appalling do-gooder. Everything she did she did because she believed it to be right, if not in her best interests or even fun. It was an admirable if totally undesirable quality.

"I … I think we should get back to studying," Kitty said eventually, burying her nose resolutely in a book again. "T-then you have aromaticity, like in benzene, where rings of atoms are formed and you can't simplify it in lines or dots…"

She went off on one then, and he tried to absorb her words but had the sense he wasn't doing as well as he had earlier. The atmosphere in the room seemed to have altered. The air was thick and hot.

He followed her suit and involved himself in the science as best he could, mostly as a way to ignore her affecting presence.

The friction between them lifted somewhat as they continued on the neutral subject of bonding, and before either of them knew it they had covered the whole syllabus in one evening.

Kitty yawned, and John looked at the time. "It's quarter past eleven," he pointed out. She nodded, and rubbed her eyes tiredly – then paused, keeping them closed. He tilted his head at her curiously. She opened them, and blinked, several times, staring at him but apparently not quite seeing him.

"…Kitty?"

"Hmm…" now she was rubbing them again, looking a bit unhappy.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh…" she blinked once more, hard, and then looked up at him properly. A sheepish look crossed her face. "It's my contacts. They get like this sometimes, if I've been, you know, reading a lot. And when I'm tired. I was just trying to get them back in the right place."

"Oh right. I didn't know you wore contacts."

She smiled, and he realised that what she meant was, 'of course you didn't know, you don't know anything about me.' And it was true. She was good at science, liked dancing, and could walk through walls. That was pretty much the limit of what he could say about Kitty Pryde.

She couldn't miss him staring at her, and she fingered the gold chain around her neck self-consciously. He followed the movement of her fingers, and saw that it was a Star of David. So Kitty was Jewish, as well. It was strange, what you could see if you just looked. And he had never really looked at her before, observantly.

The intelligent Jewish dancer mutant stood up then, probably unable to take the intensity of his gaze, and flusteredly began clearing up her books and notes. He almost moved to give her a hand, but then a knock on the door interrupted the slightly awkward moment.

Bobby opened the door, his Gameboy in one hand and the game he had come with the intention of showing John in the other. He stopped and shut his mouth abruptly at the sight of John half-straddling his chair and Kitty on the other side of his bed, looking wide-eyed and almost guilty, though for what, even she didn't know.

"Er?" said Bobby.

"Hi Bobby!" Kitty regained her composure marginally and gave him an exaggerated wave, before walking straight through John's bed, through Bobby, and down the corridor.

Bobby watched her go with a look of astonishment on his face, and John got up to join him. When she finally turned the corner, the two boys looked at each other, one in bewilderment and the other with an almost threatening look, daring Bobby to make some remark.

"What was she doing here?"

John shrugged, turning away and just about resisting shutting the door in his 'friend's' face. "We had chemistry."


	3. Biology

It would have been sooo easy to choose 'reproduction' or anatomy or something as their subject of study… I sort of half-resisted and settled on something marginally less unlikely. :P

…

**Hormones**

This time Kitty did knock, and actually waited for him to open the door before coming in. He wasn't sure what that said about the development of their friendship. Last night, surely, they had learnt more about each other as well as chemical bonding – at least, he had had some insight into her, if not the other way around. But now she seemed less comfortable with him. What was the reason for that? Perhaps it had been Bobby's inopportune entrance.

Shrugging off that train of thought, he looked at her, and found his gaze following her across the room quizzically. That first night she had worn sweats – yesterday she had been in jeans. And now she was wearing a _skirt?_ He didn't recall a time he had ever beheld her apparently making an effort with her appearance, but she seemed to be growing more conscious of how she looked every evening. Her hair was down, straight and brushed, and while her face remained free of makeup (that would be the day!) she had small hoops in her ears, and he wasn't sure if he could smell subtly sweet perfume as she walked past.

It could have all been his imagination, of course.

She turned to him with a small, slightly shy smile. "Ready to start biology?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It can't be that hard. It's just people, isn't it?"

She smiled wider. "Not at all. It's the study of life in general – plants, animals, bacteria—"

"Well if it's all those things you'd better get started." He flopped down on his bed.

"You mean we had better get started. You have to pull your weight as well!"

He gave a lazy wave of his hand in affirmative.

"Besides, we don't have to do all those things. Your exam next month is only in hormones."

"See, it is people."

"No," she passed him a book with a small grin. "I'm afraid we have to cover plant hormones as well. Biology doesn't seem as heavy as physics and chemistry, but there's an awful lot to remember."

"At least I've already heard of hormones, though." This was more than you could say for electromagnetism and chemical bonds.

Kitty turned faintly red in the cheeks, as usual. "I don't think you know what they really—"

"They make people, and according to you plants as well, wanna have sex."

Kitty narrowed her eyes at him and reddened a little more. It was the second time he had interrupted her and she had barely been there a minute. "First of all," she put her hands on her hips and he had to smile at the sight, but she didn't really notice, "plants don't have _sex_. But that's not even on-topic. Hormones are chemical messengers that go between cells, and they induce all sorts of things besides lust."

"Like what?"

Whatever the reason, possibly the way he was lying on his bed grinning wolfishly up at her (he couldn't help it; that was the way he grinned), Kitty shifted uncomfortably and flushed.

"For example, they prepare the body for fleeing or fighting."

He could relate to that. He sat up a little straighter, propping himself on the headboard, wondering if this area of science might actually be of greater interest.

The answer: no.

Hormones, it turned out, were not all about fleeing, fighting and mating. In fact, he could have sworn Kitty was deliberately avoiding those areas and focusing determinedly on things like the physiology and pharmacology of hormones themselves. It was, in short, dull.

Kitty would have disagreed. Where John was stretched on his bed, knees propped up and struggling to keep his eyelids the same, she had taken his chair and was trying hard to stay still in her excitement. He had the vague feeling she had plunged so headlong into the studying as a means of ignoring the tension that so frequently seemed to pervade them; just as he had last night. But there was also the natural penchant she had for science in the first place, the reason she had offered to tutor at all.

"John! How can you not be captivated by this stuff?" he realised his eyes had drifted shut and there was a loud creak of springs as Kitty bounded onto his bed beside him, apparently forgetting herself in the exhilaration that was the adrenocorticotropic hormone.

… The fact that he remembered the name must be at least some sign that she was doing her job.

"Huh? What?"

"Hormones! They're incredible!" she enthused, teetering on the edge of the bed on her knees and waving the book in his face so vigorously he could only fail to see anything at all.

"I'm sure!" he grabbed the book in mid-flight and held it still. She blinked at him over the top of it.

"They are…" she insisted, her voice dropping dramatically in volume and assuredness.

"…Not really."

Kitty looked slightly disappointed. "But almost everything you do… everything fundamental, like _growing_. It's hormones."

"Everything is hormones," he repeated.

"Yes," now she was barely above whispering. Even someone as pure as Kitty could not fail to recognise the sexual tension as thick in the room as though it were filled with water, or oil, or _butter_.

Because that was what it was, he realised; sexual tension. Not just awkwardness between two people who didn't really know each other and yet were forced by circumstance to spend three evenings in each other's company.

Somehow science had been the charge, the catalyst, the activation – depending on what science you were doing – but however they might define it, it couldn't be ignored any longer.

He looked hard into her light brown eyes, trying to find anything that might allow him to guess her reaction if he kissed her now. There was nothing there he could discern except bewilderment and nervousness, so he took a risk. That was always fun. She had said something about adrenaline – that was a hormone, wasn't it? Well it was coursing through his veins right now.

Her eyes widened comically as he dropped the book, which landed on his chest, and placed both hands on the back of her head, pulling her down. It was all done so fast she didn't even think to phase away.

He kissed her hard for several seconds, during which time Kitty just lay there on top of him, motionless. Then, frustrated that the book between them prevented her coming any closer, he let go briefly to push it out of the way.

However in these few valuable moments Kitty slipped away from him, stumbling off the bed and almost toppling over. He propped himself up on his elbows and frowned, while she whirled around and stared at him with an incredulous expression.

"What?" he said.

"What?" she echoed. "_What?_"

He shrugged. "You tell me, teacher." And at that he had to grin.

Kitty went red again and placed one hand to her chest in an attempt to slow her breathing. "No, you tell me! Don't go acting all… all… it was _you!_"

"What was me?" he scowled, reaching out for her again. She didn't phase, but stepped away.

"That! What are you doing?"

He noted that she didn't look angry, merely flustered and confused.

With that he swung his legs over the side of the bed and clenched his teeth. He had never been a patient fellow. "I'm _trying_ to kiss you but you're making it bloody difficult!" Admitting defeat was hard, which was why he wouldn't yet. He wasn't ready to comprehend the possibility that she didn't want to kiss him.

"But, I – we – I don't understand," she stepped away again and looked so fretful he managed to calm down a few degrees. Likely she had never been kissed that way before, not so by surprise and certainly not by someone like him.

"It's simple really," he stood up, and smiled as inspiration dawned on him. "It's hormones."

Kitty opened and shut her mouth, looking miserable.

"I'm guessing mainly testosterone," he added, thinking to make her smile.

Kitty's expression was unreadable now. She was staring at a point somewhere below his neck, clearly without really seeing him.

"Hormones," she repeated slowly.

He frowned, disliking the direction things were moving in.

"Hormones!" and then she was grabbing her bag and shoving her books back in there feverishly, anger written plainly on her face.

"What? What the hell are you doing?" he made to grab her arm but his hand went straight through her.

"It's just hormones, isn't it?" her voice had gone squeaky with crossness now. "You just go and kiss me like that and it doesn't mean anything. I don't want to be used!"

He let his hand drop in surprise. "You thought…" and it was his turn to go slightly red in annoyance. "What, you thought I might care? You want a _relationship?_ Sorry Kitty, it would take a lot more to tempt me into that trap."

It was senseless spite, and he was aware of that even as he spoke it, but that was the defensive part of him coming into play. He had always taken what he wanted recklessly, and a few minutes ago he had wanted her, her little pink mouth had looked so inviting. But she hadn't wanted him, not in the same way at least. If she had hoped he meant more by that kiss than simple lust then he needed to set her straight, immediately. And since he did not bode well with rejection, his instinctive reaction was one of severity.

Her eyes welled with tears at his insult, but he just glared at her.

"I thought you were better than people told me," her lip quivered. "But you're not. You're a disgusting _boy_."

He plastered a mocking grin on his face. "Hormones."

"Ugh!" Kitty threw up her hands and stormed out through the wall.

John watched her go, and then stared at the place she had disappeared for several moments still. Beneath the aggravation that he rarely thought to delve beyond, there was this nagging feeling of loss. Because he had ruined the equilibrium that had existed between them that he had never really examined or experienced before. And… it had been sort of nice, while it lasted.

But such things never lasted.

Kitty was too much of a silly, romantic _girl_, he was too much a boy.

His eyes fell on the lone book on his bed. It was the one that had been wedged between them earlier, and she had forgotten it in her haste to leave. It had fallen open on a page at random, and he read,

'_In electronics, crosstalk is an unwanted signal via an accidental coupling. In biology, crosstalk is when hormones – more specifically, too many hormones - actually hinder development rather than helping it. Literally, it is signals being crossed._'

…

Blargh, this chapter was impossible to write. I did like three versions before I just thought, 'okay, this is ridiculous, you're not getting anywhere, so just post the first thing you come up with however much it sucks.' And it was this. Hope it's not too disappointing.

And I know, I know, I said this would be three chapters long – but nothing has been resolved, so there will be an EPILOGUE! Except usually an epilogue is just like a big conclusion, whereas this will be a chapter in its own right and bring the story to a close, so … I don't really know what to call it. But it will be up soon, anyway!


	4. Epilogue

For those who asked, I know stuff about science cause … I am a complete nerd. Hooray! I've just made my options for the next two years and dropped Chemistry and Biology actually, though I am carrying on with Physics… I'll probably reread the Chem and Bio chapters in the future and be like, 'whuh?'

…

Three days later, John sat in his English class, watching the doorway. English was the only subject in which he could even hope to equal Kitty, and so it was the only one they shared besides all those boring moral lectures and training sessions. He hadn't seen her since that last disastrous evening.

Then the teacher entered, closing the door behind her.

Kitty was almost never late.

"Where's Kitty?" asked John loudly without thinking.

No one even looked up. It seemed strange to John that nobody leapt up, pointed and jeered, '_John kissed Kitty, ohmigod they love each other!_' But of course, no one knew. To them, it sounded like a perfectly innocent question arisen from the fact that Kitty rarely if ever missed class.

Rogue didn't even glance up, but replied, "She left yesterday."

John couldn't help blinking at her like a fish before regaining composure and adopting his usual careless tone, "Oh yeah, where?"

"Back to Chicago."

"…For good?"

"For Hanukkah."

Well, that wasn't so bad. He wanted to ask when she'd be back, but sensed Bobby's eyes on him, watching for any sign of interest. So he shut up and just glared at his paper.

…

As it turned out, Kitty didn't return until after Christmas – there being no cause for her to hang around at the institute since most students were going home for the holidays anyway.

John thought of her when he went in to take his science exam. Everything came flooding back, from Iodestone to the Pauli Exclusion Principle to the curve of her throat when she talked about it all.

It was utterly incriminating how being tutored in science had driven him to become so ardent for her.

_Physically_.

No other way. Okay, maybe chemically and biologically, but not emotionally or intellectually or anything silly like that. The fact that she had derived more from that one impulsive kiss still made him uncomfortable.

Christmas was dismal. It wasn't as if he had anywhere else to go – certainly he wasn't going to accept Bobby's offer of going to stay with him and Rogue at the Drake residence, where their mutations would constantly be elephants in the room. So John spent the season mooching about the institute with the few others who remained, trying to ignore the feeling of being in prison.

In early January, one windy and frigid day, the rest of the students and last semester's exam results appeared on the same day.

"I _cannot_ believe it!" Bobby enthused over his and John's sheets of scores.

John just clenched his teeth and tried to look past how annoying he found the other boy. "What?"

"You got an A in science, man! I barely scraped a B. And Kitty only tutored you for three nights. She must be some sort of miracle worker. Do you think she'd tutor me?"

John just stared at the 'A' printed on his paper. In all his other subjects he had achieved as he had been expected to – almost entirely Cs, except for a B+ in English (the only subject he was not slightly ashamed to try in). He had an E in American History, however. What did he care about American History? He wasn't even American.

"Hey Kitty! What did you get?" his eyes snapped up at the sound of Bobby's voice.

The little brunette he had failed to notice at the other end of the corridor looked up, saw them both and flushed, though she hid it quite well and walked up to them plastered with a brave face.

"Hi Bobby. Yeah, I did alright."

Bobby laughed and snatched Kitty's sheet from her hand. "You're too modest! A+ in everything. How do you do it?"

"I got a regular A in Russian Lit," she said quietly, lowering her gaze. John knew she knew he was staring at her. The rest of the people milling around, and even Bobby, were oblivious.

"What did you get, John?" he was so occupied by the few freckles she had on her nose he had failed to notice before that he almost didn't hear her.

"Huh? Oh, the usual."

"He got an A in science though, didn't you?" Bobby gave him a congratulatory punch on the shoulder that he shrugged off grumpily. "That was thanks to your tutoring Kit. He was destined to fail otherwise."

John had looked away now, although both Kitty and Bobby were trying to catch his eye.

"I only just got through the biology section, though," he said quietly, lifting his deep gaze suddenly and achieving the desired effect of making Kitty inhale sharply.

"Yes, er," she stumbled over her words, "we didn't quite finish the syllabus, did we? Did you manage the section on peptide hormones? I don't think we got to that part… Jubilee told me there was a question about somatostatin, and I don't think I told you about how it's secreted into the hypothalamo-hypophysial portal circulation--"

She was rambling now, getting frenzied under the intensity of his stare. She was driving him absolutely crazy. How could science be such an aphrodisiac, even when words like 'secreted' were involved?

He grabbed each of her arms and yanked her to him, halting her in the middle of the word 'hippocampus.'

Bobby's mouth fell open, as did several other people's who had noticed.

It was fast and hard and when he pulled back it was all she could do to stay upright.

"Yo…" said someone.

"…Is this the same as before?" Kitty said softly, gazing up at him with her engaging brown eyes.

"I don't think it's just hormones," he confessed.

She smiled shyly. "As long as you want me for my encephalon as well as my sexual dimorphism."

It didn't matter that he had no idea what she was saying, and likely nobody else in the general vicinity did either. They were all staring at Kitty and John, so he took her hand and negotiated his way through the crowd.

"Are you free tonight?" he said quietly, unaccustomed to asking that sort of thing and hoping he didn't sound like a dork.

"For a date?" she blushed becomingly.

"Nah. For tutoring in American History."

…

Encephalon brain

Sexual dimorphism the, er, more feminine parts of Kitty's anatomy

Tried to get this up fast for the folks over at Through Flames. Thanks for everybody's support for the duration of this story :)


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